Thursday, September 15, 2016

Thee Mightees - Glimmer

What keeps us writing about indie music, cut off from the payola and other benefits from big labels and their corporate partners?  A large part of it is discovering bands that do not yet have a big media profile, and may never have a big media profile without some help, but send shivers down our arms and detonate pleasure bombs in our heads.  And right now I can think of no better example of such a band than Sheffield's Thee Mightees.  Hailing from a city I more often associate with electronic music (which probably is a personal limitation) and with a name that sounds like it comes from the Kingston, Jamaica music scene circa 1969, Thee Mightees may be the best lo-fi, jangle pop band not yet on your radar.

Thee Mightee's new album is Glimmer, and over the course of ten tracks the band proves to be equally adept at jangle pop (e.g. "Emoji Dreamworld"), sunny California psychedelia (e.g. "Yoko"), and '60s garage rock (e.g. "Shalalala Man").  They also slip in one of the most perfect guitar pop gems of the year in "Shining Sea" (video below).  I was familiar with Thee Mightees from a previous release via Fuzzkill Records (Smiling cassette), and loved their pop smarts and excellent songwriting, but I was nevertheless bowled over by the quality and remarkable consistency of Glimmer.  Around WYMA World Headquarters, this is being tipped as a top 30 album for the year.

Thee Mightees are Thomas Shore, Ben Russell, Tom Roper, and Chris Wood.  Glimmer is a joint release by Leed's Chud Records and Glasgow's Fuzzkill Records, and is available digitally and on cassette.  Three songs mentioned above are embedded below, and you can stream the entire album at the Bandcamp and Soundcloud links below.








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Chud Records' Bandcamp for Glimmer
Fuzzkill Records' Bandcamp for Glimmer cassette
Soundcloud for Glimmer
Bandcamp for earlier releases
Chud Records
Fuzzkill Records


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